Intentionally diluting the meaning of U.S. citizenship

Peter J. Spiro in his recent book, "Beyond Citizenship: American Identity After Globalization," maintains that the decline of citizenship as a "meaningful" or "real" concept is irreversible. It has become a mere legalistic idea based on rights, not duties, and nations compete for immigrants.Spiro despises A2, S1, C5 of the Constitution.

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act...George Orwell

Let's be clear.

The eligibility requirement for POTUS is natural born citizen, not naturalized citizen,not native born citizen, not citizen of the United States.

Each type of citizenship has a legal definition and is very specificdespite the attempts by Team Obama, the co-conspirators in the judiciary, Congress, and the MSM to conflate the terms and bastardize the Presidency.

Stanley Ann Dunham Obama - British wife

The mandates of the Act of 1948 are clear, once an underage, then married wife of a British subject entered Canada to gain entranced to another colonial state in Kenya, flying through London of Britain, Stanley Ann Obama was a British wife, carrying a British child within her with full benefits and legal rights and responsibilities forever upon her and Barack Jr.

Various sites including the Birther Report are reporting this video from British Advisor & Barrister Michael Shrimpton. He states unequivocally that Obama’s purported mom was not pregnant in 1961 and that Obama was born in Kenya in 1960.

Kenya was still under British control which is why their intelligence files show Obama’s father ran guns for the Mau Mau. Shrimpton states the CIA did covert DNA testing on Obama at a fund-raising dinner and the test came back with no match to the claimed grandparents.

In the beginning there were questions about Obama’s eligibility to hold office. Few people were eager to really delve into the eligibility question as it applied to Obama, primarily through fear of being called racist. In other words, cowardice and political correctness played a huge roll in the election of the country’s first knowingly ineligiblepresident.

We all know how the MSM covered for him, never asking the most elementary questions surrounding his eligibility. For instance, how could a person be a dual citizen ((best case scenario for BHO) and run for POTUS?

After all, according to his own website when he was running for president, his father was born in Kenya. As such, father and son wereborn Brits according to the British Nationality Act of 1948.

Fast forward to 2013.

While there may have been some genuinely ignorant members of Congress who did not understand the meaning/definition of Natural Born Citizenship and how it applies to the U.S. and the presidency, that is no longer the case.

The question has moved from if Obama was ever eligible to run from who doesn’t know he couldn’t legitimately run. It stopped being a question a long time ago as evidenced by this Representative Blake Farenthold’s inability to utter the words Obama was born a natural born citizen in one sentence.

A shocking change in the content of reporting at NBC, CNN and CBS indicates the pro-Obama media are beginning to stagger under the weight of facts which plainly show that Barack Obama has never provided valid, corroborated documentation proving he is constitutionally eligible to hold the office of president.

The following article written by Dan Crosby of The Daily Pen is an important read. It also shows how far we’ve come and how far the Left Stream Media continues to go to protect the fraud in the White House.

New York, NY – The pro-Obama, liberal mainstream media is showing symptoms of fatigue in their endless defense of Barack Obama’s fraudulent identity.

A sudden reverse in liberal media content indicates they are realizing defense of Obama’s “eligibility” based on rapidly fading support of his fraudulent birth certificate is no longer sustainable. The lies about Obama’s identity are becoming too heavy for those undersold as errand-slaves for the bowing liberal consensus.

In at least two broadcasts by CBS ad MSNBC, following Mitt Romney’s campaign rally joke about his own birth certificate, hosts from the leftist networks used a new word to defend Barack Obama’s fading credibility.

Legitimacy.

Defense of Obama’s “legitimacy”, not “eligibility”, is now emanating from media propagandists indicating they can no longer defend the lie that the digitally forged image of an alleged 1961 “Certificate of Live Birth” proves he is “eligible” to be president. Now, they are desperately hoping everyone will forget their abetment of the “eligibility by fake computer image” lie and show grace for Obama’s contingent claims to “legitimacy by popularity” instead.”

“Constitutional questions do not require constitutional decisions. If non-judicial actors, including Congress (Frank, Hatch, Kennedy, Waters, Graham, McCaskill, Conyers), editorialists (NY Times, MSNBC, LA Times et. al.), leading members of the bar (Turley, Dean, Epstein, Toobin), and the People themselves (can you say Kool-Aid?)manage to generate a constitutional consensus, there isn’t much that the courts can do about it.

In cases such as this one, at least, that seems to be an acceptable method of constitutional determination.“ Law professor Peter J. Spiro

CNN, FOX NEWS, & MSNBC investigators looking for proof that Obama is a natural born citizen.

The plan that was devised sometime in 2004, just in time for Barack Obama to run for POTUS.

Members of both parties had long hated the NBC clause because the clause automatically disqualified some of their favorites. Think Marco Rubio and you’ll understand why the GOP and FOX never outed the fraud OBAMA.

Since taking the time to change the NBC clause would mean adding a new amendment to the Constitution, the idea was/is to simply ignore it and conflate natural born citizenship with citizenship.

No one in either party wanted to take the time or risk that once Americans were given the truth about the rationale behind natural born citizenship that it would be defeated.

So what to do, what to do? Easy, just pretend the NBC clause is of no importance or doesn’t exist. Say it often, and beat the drum, beat the drum.

This could only be accomplished with the continued ongoing support of the MSM and all the cable networks. They continue to comply.

Ever hear one story about how Obama’s mother was underage at the time of her “marriage” thus making her a British wife? No, of course not.

Stanley Ann Dunham Obama

The mandates of the Act of 1948 are clear, once an underage, then married wife of a British subject entered Canada to gain entranced to another colonial state in Kenya, flying through London of Britain, Stanley Ann Obama was a British wife, carrying a British child within her with full benefits and legal rights and responsibilities forever upon her and Barack Jr.

Intentionally diluting the meaning of U.S. citizenship

Peter J. Spiro in his recent book, “Beyond Citizenship: American Identity After Globalization,” maintains that the decline of citizenship as a “meaningful” or “real” concept is irreversible.

It has become a mere legalistic idea based on rights, not duties, and nations compete for immigrants.

Let me say, yet again, Spiro despises A2, S1, C5 of the Constitution.

How many times must we say this? In order for a person to be a NBC,BOTHparents must be U.S. citizens at the time of birth!

Like this:

Obama told a Selma audience how he had been conceived by his parents because they had been inspired by the fervor following the “Bloody Sunday” voting rights demonstration in Selma, Alabama. “There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama,” he said. “Because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don’t tell me I don’t have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don’t tell me I’m not coming home to Selma, Alabama.”

Small detail — Obama was born in 1961 — the Selma march occurred in 1965 — four years later — oops!

“My father served in World War II, and when he came home, he got the services that he needed.”

Obama’s father was nine, maybe ten, years old when World War II ended in August, 1945. Obama’s father, Senior, never served in any army, but was very close to the leadership of the Mau Mau, as was his father, Hussein..

It was his grandfather, Hussein, who served in World War II — in the British Army — in Burma — when he returned to Kenya, he became a spy for the Mau Mau. They were the guys that sent Senior off to the University of Hawaii. One might say that, indirectly, the Mau Mau uprising is the movement that begat Barack.

The following was originally posted in The Obama File soon to be shut down…going black!

I don’t know what to believe?

help fight the media

Obama — A Kenyan? — All Of These Sources Say So

The only thing we KNOW about Barack Hussein Obama II is we don’t KNOW a damned thing about him.The very, very liberal, National Public Radio, described Barack Obama as “Kenyan-born.”The Associated Press (AP) declared that “Kenyan-born US Senate hopeful, Barrack Obama, appeared set to take over the Illinois Senate seat after his main rival, Jack Ryan, dropped out of the race on Friday night amid a furor over lurid sex club allegations.”

The Kenya Standard — “It seems Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States of America (via a sleepy village in Kenya called Nyang’oma K’Ogelo) can do no wrong.”

The Nigerian Observer — “Americans will today go to the polls to elect their next President with Democratic Party candidate, Senator Barack Obama largely favoured to win. The Kenyan-born Senator will…” (another exhibit)

GraphicGhana.com — “For Ghana, Obama’s visit will be a celebration of another milestone in African history as it hosts the first-ever African-American President on this presidential visit to the continent of his birth.”

And The Ghana Times — “So far, the odds favour the once underdog in American politics, Obama, the African-American Senator from Illinois state. A Congressional Quarterly (CQ) politics monitored on BBC put the Kenyan born American ahead of his rival, John McCain.”

PlanUSA — “More than 50 schools in Kisumu, Kenya, about 30 miles from where Obama was born and where his grandmother still lives…”

Then there’s the Chicago Sun-Times article from September 3, 2006 by Lynn Sweet — “Obama’s next big international journey will be in 2007. He says he’s looking at China, India and Indonesia, ‘where ironically I actually have more of a childhood than I do in Kenya.”’

Then there’s Mama Sarah, Obama’s step-grandmother. She said Obama was born in Kenya (twice), and she was there. Here’s two videos of Mama Sarah making her claim.

And finally, there’s Obama’s wife — at 42 seconds in this video, Michelle clearly says: “When we took our trip to Africa and visited his home country, in Kenya…” — not his ancestral home — not his father’s home country — “…HIS home country, in Kenya…” — Here is the definition of “home country.”

And during a fundraiser in Tampa in December 2007, wife, Michelle, in this video, discussed how hard it was for her and her husband to pay off student loans from “good schools,” Michelle Obama said the following:

“What it reminded me of was our trip to Africa, two years ago, and the level of excitement that we felt in that country — the hope that people saw just in the sheer presence of somebody like Barack Obama — a Kenyan, a black man, a man of great statesmanship who they believe could change the fate of the world.”

The reference to “Kenyan” starts about 2:05 minutes into the video. Use the slider.

Ok, ok, none of those are “official” sources — but this one is:

The following transcript is of an April 14, 2010 debate on the floor of the Kenyan National Assembly. The question under discussion concerns the repatriation of Kenyan artifacts which were removed from the country by colonialists. The Ministers want to know what is being done to return the artifacts, or failing their return, how and when Kenya will be compensated for their loss. They argue that museums in the US and elsewhere have earned money on these artifacts, thus those countries are indebted to Kenya. Importantly, in 2006, when Barack Obama visited Kenya, strategized with, and campaigned on behalf of Raila Odinga, the Senator also promised to help with the return of artifacts to Kenya or to seek financial compensation.

Quote — bottom of page 8: “Dr. Khalwale: Mr. Speaker, Sir, the Minister has told us that the office of the then Senator Obama gave him a lot of assistance. That is very good to hear. Could he tell us what commitment the same office made by way of compensation to this country because those artefacts in those museums have been attracting visitors who were paying to view them? What commitment did they make about compensation and more importantly, the biggest artefact in the USA today that belongs to this country is one Barrack Obama. How does he intend to repatriate himself or part of the money that is realized from all the royalties that he is attracting across the whole world?”

That’s the fifth Kenyan official to claim Kenya as Obama’s homeland. Obama’s wife Michelle, and grandmother Sarah said the same thing — as did more than a dozen responsible new sources, including National Public Radio.

And this one:

A Kenya National Assembly Official Report, dated March 25, 2010. On p. 31, 2nd paragraph, the Minister for Lands, James Aggrey Orengo, who is a member of the Kenyan Parliament identifies Obama’s birthplace as Kenya — and that he is “not even a native American.”

During debate over the draft of a new Kenyan constitution, James Orengo, the country’s minister of lands and a member of parliament for the Ugenya constituency, cited America’s election of a Kenyan-born president as an example of what can be accomplished when diverse peoples unite:

“If America was living in a situation where they feared ethnicity and did not see itself as a multiparty state or nation,” Orengo posited, “how could a young man born here in Kenya, who is not even a native American, become the president of America?”

Orengo held up the U.S. as a country no longer “living in the past,” since Americans elected a Kenyan-born president without regard to “ethnic consideration and objectives.”

This is the third Kenyan government source alleging Obama’s Kenyan birth

And this one:

The Kenyan National Assembly, Official Report, Wednesday, 5th November, 2008 — “Dr. Khalwale: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. You have heard none other than the Leader of Government Business acknowledge that because of Obama’s win in the United States of America (USA), the House is crippled. Could we allow him to move a Motion for Adjournment so we could also continue the celebrations of having a Kenyan ruling the USA? I humbly request.”

Dr. Khalwale wasn’t alone. Ms. Odhiambo chimed in.

Ms. Odhiambo: Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the President-elect, Mr. Obama, is a son of the soil of this country. Every other country in this continent is celebrating the Obama win. It is only proper and fitting that the country which he originates from should show the same excitement, pomp and colour. I, therefore, seek leave of the House that we adjourn to discuss the issue.

And this one too . . .

Olara Otunnu (Harvard Law, 1978) relating the remark of Kenyan historian Ali Mazrui on the oddity that a member of Kenya’s Luo tribe (Barack Obama, a Kenyan citizen and Luo tribe member from birth) may become president of the United States before a Luo tribe member becomes president of Kenya. “Town Hall Forum: An Examination of Race, Age, Gender & Religion in the 2008 Election,” Harvard Law School Reunions, Oct. 25, 2008, 9:15 a.m. (Austin Hall, 1st Floor, West), at 60:17 mark.

Then there’s the recording of the Kenyan Ambassador saying Obama was born in Kenya on the “Mike In The Morning” show on WRIF radio, in Detroit.

The point here is that there are plenty of reasons to question who and what Barack Obama is.

Then there’s the oft cited AP report of the debate, between Obama and Keyes in 2004, in which Keyes faulted Obama for not being a “natural born” citizen, and in which Obama, by his quick retort, “So what? I am running for Illinois Senator, not the presidency.”

Obama admits he was, “at birth,” a Kenyan citizen and a subject of Great Britain. He has proffered a book, a phony birth document and some old newspaper clippings as documentation that he’s eligible to serve as POTUS.

Obama continues to fight the release of his bona fides with millions and both federal and private attorneys, arrogantly assuming that the American People will just sit there with their mouths shut while this guy shreds the U. S. Constitution.

To top it all off, the Democratic National Committee filed fraudulent “Official Certification of Nomination” papers for Barack Obama and Joe Biden in all 50 states.

The legacy media has completely abandoned its responsibility as the government’s watchdog, has become political, and is functioning as an Obama propaganda outlet. Don’t expect them to ask any embarrassing questions.

Most Peculiar

This is an interesting link — www.myspace.com/barackobamaIt is Barack Obama’s MySpace web page. In the upper right corner it brags that it is, “Powered by HOPE, Obama 08.” There are Obama logos all over the page, that was created and is maintained by the Obama Campaign. These are Obama’s people.In the frame containing Obama’s photo, is this data: “Male — 52 years old — Washington, Washington, DC — United States“Nothing unusual there, right? Wrong!We’ve been told over, and over that Barack Obama was born on August 4th, 1961 — and that’s the date on his bogus COLB.

If Barack Obama was born on August 4th, 1961, he would be 49 years old, not 52. If Obama is 52, then he would have been born in 1958 (or ’57), before Hawaii became a state.

The implication of that would be that Obama would not only be ineligible because of his dual citizenship, but because he was not born in the United States mainland — territories don’t count towards “natural born” status.

Now, I believe that this is probably an error, but it is Obama’s site, and it’s been up there since at least August 2009. So what’s the story? What are we to believe?

More Kenya Stuff

CDR Charles Kerchner points outan interesting tidbit from “Dreams…,” Obama’s mom planned to “return to Kenya” with Obama and his father — to return to somewhere, you had to have been there first.In Obama’s biographical book Dreams from My Father, on page 126, Obama tells the account of Obama’s mom telling him that some day it was intended that all three of them were to “return to Kenya”, i.e., his father, mother, and Obama. Therefore to return somewhere you must have been there first. Thus all three of them were there before, i.e., when Obama was born.See the quote on page 126 of Obama’s book Dream from My Father, in this image:

“Her chin began to tremble, and she bit down on hr lip, steadying herself. She said, Your father wrote back, saying he was going ahead with it. Then you were born, and we agreed that the three of us would return to Kenya after he finished his studies.”

Taken by itself, “…the three of us would return to Kenya…,” is not sufficient evidence to close the case on the “born in Kenya” theory. However, the shear accumulation of all the evidence seen as a whole makes a compelling argument that Obama was born in Kenya. From Michelle Obama who said that Kenya is Barack’s “home country,” to the Kenyan Minister of Lands Orengo, who said explicitly that Obama was born in Kenya.

And as we know from prior readings in Obama’s automythology, “Dreams…,” page 26, he had in his possession a copy of his birth certificate, along with his vaccination records.

And This From India

Reporting from India, Jake Tapper saysthere was an odd little moment with Spice Jet founder Bhupendra Kansagra, when Obama spoke to CEOs Saturday in Mumbai.MR. KANSAGRA: Thank you. Welcome, Mr. President, to India. As a fellow Kenyan, I’m very proud to see that you have made…OBAMA: Made something of myself. (Laughter.)MR. KANSAGRA: …India as the focus of your drive for exports out of the U.S.With no evidence, one way or the other, Tapper adds this editorial comment, “Obviously the president is not a Kenyan. One supposes Mr. Kansagra meant ‘of Kenyan ancestry’ or something.”

Obvious to who, Jake?

Canada Too!

DrKate is reporting that on June 3, Steven Pidgeon gave a terrific interview on Trunews, discussing new and important information contained in his book, The Obama Error. This is worth listening to the entire hour discussion. There are some important tidbits.Attorney Pidgeon claims he found at the Consulate in British Columbia, just over the US-Canada border, a name change from “Barak Mounir Ubayd” to “Barack Hussein Obama” on October 14th 1982, in Skookumchuck, British Columbia.

It just never ends with this guy. Who the hell is he?

Kenyans Honor Obama’s “Birthplace”

Jerome Corsi saysAn internal bulletin from the Kenyan National Security Intelligence Service, or NSIS, states that the Kenyan government in 2009 commissioned a cultural museum in the Obama home village of Kogelo to honor the “birthplace of President Barack Obama” and rededicate the tomb of his father, Barack Obama Sr.The 2009 NSIS bulletinreport said:

The ministry of national heritage this month hosted a cultural festival in Kogelo and commissioned a cultural museum on a plot donated by a member of the Kogelo community. The cultural festival was attended by the minister for national heritage, William ole Ntimama and U.S. ambassador, Michael Ranneberger.

This was to honor the birthplace of President Obama and re-dedicate the tomb of Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., the president’s late father. But the project had been delayed because of ownership wrangles surrounding the plot.

According to an article in the Kenyan Daily Nation newspaper July 5, 2010, the Kenyan government’s plans to build a 112 million Kenyan Schilling ($1.3 million) cultural center at Kogelo was locked in a dispute over who should donate land to the government for the project.

The Daily Nation published an artist’s sketch of the proposed Kogelo cultural center. They referred to it as Obama’s “ancestral home.”

The NSIS memo suggests the Kenyan intelligence agency kept a close watch on the Obama family in Africa.

It noted the Kenyan government provided assistance to Obama’s step-grandmother, Sarah Hussein Obama, in the form of additional security and a government stipend of 50,000 Kenyan Schillings ($575) per month.

One more source of the “rumor” that Barack Obama was born in Kenya — Kenyan National Security Intelligence Service — you’d think they know.

The Origins and Interpretation of the Presidential Eligibility Clause in the U.S. Constitution:
Why Did the Founding Fathers Want the President To Be a “Natural Born Citizen”
and
What Does this Clause Mean for Foreign-Born Adoptees?

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States (emphasis added).

This commentary focuses on the first eligibility requirement in this clause, namely the requirement that the President be a “natural born citizen.” What are the origins of this requirement? What does it mean?

The full answers to these questions are lost in the back room discussions between the Founding Fathers during 1787, but some evidence has survived over the centuries. I first take a look at the evidence from the Constitutional Convention, then I turn to other evidence. In the conclusion I consider the implications of this history for the presidential eligibility of foreign-born adoptees.

Evidence from the Constitutional Convention
The presidential eligibility clause appeared in constitutional drafts near the end of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The surviving notes on the deliberations at the Convention, and other related material, provide some evidence concerning the origins of this clause.

The John Jay Letter
The most direct evidence about the origins of the “natural born citizen” clause comes from a letter that John Jay wrote to George Washington, who was at the time serving as President of the Constitutional Convention.(2) John Jay was not a delegate to the Convention; his views conflicted with those of the majority in his state, New York, and he was not elected by the state legislature.(3) However, he was a well-known figure who had been President of the Continental Congress. Moreover, he would become an author, along with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, of some of the famous Federalist Papers, written to encouraged New Yorkers to ratify the proposed constitution, and, after the Constitution had been ratified, he would be appointed as the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.(4) It seems reasonable to suppose, therefore, that his letter carried some weight.

In this letter, dated July 25, 1787, Jay wrote:

Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Command in chief of the american army shall not be given to, nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen (emphasis in the original).(5)

The meaning of this letter is not entirely clear. In today’s usage, the word “administration” might be thought to limit the focus of the first part of the letter to the executive branch. According to one historian, however, this part was primarily directed at members of the legislative branch.(6) Moreover, the second part of the letter, where the expression “natural born” appears, also may not have been directed at the President; at that point Jay had no way of knowing that the Convention would ultimately make the President the commander-in-chief. Nevertheless, this letter is the only document connected to the Constitutional Convention that explicitly argues for a “natural born” citizen in a high executive position.

According to one scholar, Charles Gordon, “Possibly this letter was motivated by distrust of Baron von Stuben, who had served valiantly in the Revolutionary forces, but whose subsequent loyalty was suspected by Jay. Another theory is that the Jay letter, and the resulting constitutional provision, responded to rumors that the convention was concocting a monarchy to be ruled by a foreign monarch.”(7) However, Gordon does not give much weight to Jay’s letter, and he concludes that “no explanation of the origin or purpose of the presidential qualification clause appears anywhere in the recorded deliberation of the Convention.”(8)

Madison’s Convention Notes

My own reading of James Madison’s notes, which are the principal record of the debates in the Constitutional Convention, leads me to a different conclusion about the origins of this clause. On July 25, 1787, when John Jay’s letter was dated, the Convention was debating the nature of the Executive branch. In particular, the delegates were considering a clause that called for the Executive to be elected by the Legislature. If this provision were adopted, Madison said,

the ministers of foreign powers would have and make use of, the opportunity to mix their intrigues & influence with the Election. Limited as the powers of the Executive are, it will be an object of great moment with the great rival powers of Europe who have American possessions, to have at the head of our Governmt a man attached to their respective politics and interests. No pains, nor perhaps experience, will be spared to gain from the Legislature an appointmt favorable to their wishes. Germany & Poland are witnesses of this danger. In the former, the election of the Head of Empire, till it became in a manner hereditary, interested all Europe, and was much influenced by foreign interference. In the latter, altho’ the elected Magistrate has very little real power, his election has at all times produced the most eager interference of foreign princes, and has at length slid entirely into foreign hands.(9)

Several other delegates reinforced Madison’s point. Pierce Butler said “The two great evils to be avoided are cabal at home, & influence from abroad. It would be difficult to avoid either if the Election be made by the Natl Legislature.”(10) According to Madison, Hugh Williamson “was sensible that strong objections lay agst an election of the Executive by the Legislature, and that it opened a door for foreign influence.”(11)

There is a striking similarity between the words in Jay’s letter and in these statements at the Convention. Jay is concerned about “the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government.” Madison worries that foreign powers will attempt “to have at the head of our Governmt a man attached to their respective politics and interests.” Apparently, however, this timing was nothing more than coincidence. In fact, Jay was in New York when he wrote the letter, engaged in other duties, and “he was still in the dark about the direction toward which that body was moving.”(12) Moreover, the letter was undoubtedly not delivered to Washington until days, if not weeks, after July 25.

In addition, Madison, backed up by Butler and Williamson, appears to be addressing a different issue than is Jay. After all, Madison’s comments focus on the method for electing the President, whereas Jay is concerned about the President’s, or at least the commander-in-chief’s, qualifications.

In fact, however, these two issues are inextricably linked in the Convention debate. The Founding Fathers were very concerned about foreign influence and went to great lengths to design a government that would be insulated from it. At first, they focused on finding a mechanism for electing the President that would minimize foreign influence. Indeed, even though the issue of Presidential qualifications was raised, as we will see, on July 26, the Convention did not turn to that issue in earnest until almost a month later, and it did not restrict eligibility to “natural born citizens” until it had dropped the idea that the Legislature should elect the President. In other words, the Convention regarded Presidential qualifications as a secondary tool for limiting foreign influence, and the delegates put off the debate on this secondary tool until it had succeeded in designing a method for electing the President that could not be manipulated by foreign powers.

The next day, July 26, 1787, the Constitutional Convention returned to the issue of foreign influence on the Executive. Specifically, on that day George Mason moved “That the Committee of Detail be instructed to receive a clause requiring certain qualifications of landed property and citizenship of the United States in members of the legislature….”(13) Because, at that point in the Convention, the Legislature was still expected to elect the President, this motion can be seen as a way to limit foreign influence on the Executive.

At this point, Charles Pinckney and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney “moved to insert by way of amendmt the words Judiciary & Executive so as to extend the qualifications to those departments which was agreed to nem. con.”(14) This is the first mention of presidential qualifications at the Convention. It appears almost as an aside. Along with an amendment to strike out the word “landed,” it was incorporated into Mason’s motion and passed by the Convention.

However, several comments during the debate reveal that the issue of legislative and presidential qualifications was far from settled. Right after the original Mason motion, Gouverneur Morris stated that “If qualifications are proper, he wd prefer them to be in the electors rather than the elected.”(15) This comment is directed toward qualifications for members of the Legislature, but it also suggests that Morris and other delegates might have been more concerned about the qualifications of the people electing the President than about the qualifications of the President. Moreover, right after the Pickney and Pickney amendment was accepted, John Dickinson stated that he “was agst any recital of qualifications in the Constitution.”(16) In any case, the Convention then referred its recent proceeding to the Committee on Detail, which consisted of Delegates Rutledge, Randolph, Gorham, Ellsworth, and Wilson. This committee was specifically instructed “to receive a clause or clauses requiring certain qualifications of property and citizenship in the United States, for the executive, the judiciary, and the members of both branches of the legislature of the United States.”(17)

The Committee on Detail’s first report was presented to the Convention on August 6. It included qualifications for members of the Legislature (three years of U.S. citizenship for the House of Representatives and four years of citizenship for the Senate) but did not mention qualifications for the Executive, who was, in that report, still elected by the Legislature.(18) This report also proposed that: “The Legislature of the United States shall have the authority to establish such uniform qualifications of the members of each House, with regard to property, as to the said Legislature shall deem expedient.”(19) There followed a long debate on the propriety of a legislature determining the qualifications of its members, the appropriateness of an requirement based on land or wealth, and the number of years of citizenship required for each house. Before the debate was over, the Convention decided not to let the Legislature determine the qualifications of its members, rejected land or wealth qualifications, and raised the citizenship requirement to seven years for House members and to nine years for Senators.(20)

The Convention returned to these issues on August 13. The session began with a motion, by James Wilson and Edmund J. Randolph, to cut the citizenship requirement for House members back to four years. Then Elbridge Gerry stated his concerns about the role of foreigners. One historian thinks that Gerry’s concerns were stimulated by John Jay’s letter, which by that time had surely arrived in Philadelphia.(21) In any case,

Mr. Gerry wished that in future the eligibility might be confined to Natives. Foreign powers would intermeddle in our affairs, and spare no expense to influence them. Persons having foreign attachments will be sent among us & insinuated into our councils in order to be made instruments for their purposes. Every one knows the vast sums laid out in Europe for secret services. He was not singular in these ideas. A great many of the most influential men in Massts reasoned in the same manner.(22)

The following debate was quite lively, with delegates weighing in on both sides of this proposal. Alexander Hamilton “was in general agst embarassing the Govt with minute restrictions.” He recognized that there was a “possible danger” from foreign influence, but also said:

the advantage of encouraging foreigners was obvious & admitted. Persons in Europe of moderate fortunes will be fond of coming here when they will be on a level with the first citizens. He moved that the section be altered so as to require merely citizenship & inhabitancy. The right of determining the rule of naturalization will then leave a discretion to the Legislature on this subject which will answer every purpose.(23)

This statement is important for two reasons. First, it recognizes that disqualifying people who are not “Natives” from public office will make them second-class citizens and discourage them from even coming to the United States. Second, it links naturalization and the rules of eligibility for public office. As discussed below, the Constitution leaves this link unclear, but Hamilton explicitly states that the naturalization process should be used to determine the rules of citizenship.

James Madison seconded Hamilton’s motion. He also recognized the importance of avoiding second-class citizenship for immigrants. Specifically. “He wished to invite foreigners of merit & republican principles among us.”(24) Wilson, who was himself foreign-born, then “cited Pennsylvania as proof of the advantages of emigration, and withdrew his motion in favor of Hamilton’s.” In contrast, Butler “was strenous agst admitting foreigners into our public councils,” and Hamilton’s motion was eventually rejected.(25)

The debate then turned to the treatment of current citizens, who, like Wilson and several other delegates, were foreign-born. Gouverneur Morris moved that current residents be exempted from the seven-year rule for eligibility to the House.(26) Again, a lively debate ensued. John Rutledge declared that “The policy of the precaution was as great with regard to foreigners now citizens; as to those who are to be naturalized in the future.”(27) In contrast, Nathaniel Gorham re-stated the principle of equal citizenship for all when he said that “when foreigners are naturalized it wd seem as if they stand on equal footing with natives.”(28) Ultimately, Morris’s exemption was rejected, although it later reappeared in the presidential eligibility clause.

The issue of qualifications for the President next appeared on August 20, when Elbridge Gerry moved “that the committee be instructed to report proper qualifications for the President.”(29) He was talking about the Committee on Detail. On August 22, Rutledge presented the Committee’s report, which called for the insertion of a presidential qualifications clause. This clause did not include the “natural born citizen” expression. Instead it said that the President “shall be of the age of thirty five years, and a citizen of the United States, and shall have been an inhabitant thereof for twenty one years.”(30)

Madison did not record any debate on this clause. Instead, on August 31, the Convention referred various issues, including presidential qualifications and the method of electing the President, to a Committee of Eleven, which had one member from each state.(31) This committee presented its report on September 4, 1787.(32) The words “natural born citizen” first appeared in this report. Indeed, these words appeared in a form that is identical to the final version in the Constitution: “No person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible to the office of President.” The record of the Constitutional Convention provides no explanation for the introduction of the words “natural born.” On September 7, “The section requiring that the President should be a natural-born citizen &c, & have been resident for fourteen years, & be thirty five years of age, was agreed to nem. con.”(33)

The report presented on September 4 also included the provisions calling for the creation of the Electoral College — the first formal proposal eliminating the election of the President by the Legislature. Although, as discussed below, this step was seen as a way to help insulate the presidency from foreign influence, it also broke the clear link between the citizenship requirements for legislators and the selection of the President and hence opened the door for stronger presidential qualifications.(34) The report itself consisted of a series of “additions & alterations,” and it may not be just coincidence that the entry calling for the Electoral College, number four, was followed immediately by the entry on presidential qualifications, number five.(35)

At this point another Committee of Five, also known as the Committee on Style and Arrangement or the Committee on Revision, was appointed to produce the final version of the Constitution. This committee retained the presidential eligibility clause with no change in the “natural born citizen” expression. This version of the clause also was adopted without debate.(36)

Summary

In one sense, the switch to the Electoral College lowered the need for explicit presidential qualifications because it minimized the line of potential foreign influence running through the Legislature. In another sense, however, this switch broke the clear connection between the citizenship requirements of legislators and the selection of the President, and therefore boosted the symbolic importance of a citizenship requirement for the President. This change in context, along with the Convention’s decision to make the President the commander-in-chief of the army, gave new weight to the arguments in Jay’s letter, and in particular to the suggestion in that letter that the presidency be restricted to “natural born” citizens. When Jay’s letter arrived, probably sometime before August 13, the Convention was not ready to deal with it, and indeed was somewhat hostile to its ideas. But between August 31 and September 4, when the Committee of Eleven did its work, the context changed and the seed that Jay had planted bore fruit.(37)

Evidence from Other Sources

Additional evidence about the origins and interpretation of the “natural born citizen” expression is available from sources other than the Constitutional Convention. To a large degree, this evidence reinforces the above interpretation based on the Convention, but it also raises some additional issues, particularly about the term “natural born” citizen and its relationship to “naturalization.”

Natural-born, Native-born, and Naturalization

The term “natural born” citizen has a long history in British common law.(38) In fact, a law passed in 1677 law says that “natural born” citizens include people born overseas to British citizens. This usage was undoubtedly known to John Jay, who had children born overseas while he was serving as a diplomat.(39) It also appears to have been employed by the members of the first Congress, who included many of the people who had participated in the Constitutional Convention. To be specific, The Naturalization Act of 1790, which was passed by this Congress, declared “And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens; Provided, that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident of the United States.”(40)

This history suggests that the Founding Fathers used the term “natural born” as an expansive definition of citizenship, that is, as a way to make certain that people born overseas to American citizens would have the full rights of other American citizens.(41)

A particularly compelling version of this interpretation, with language that applies, inadvertently, no doubt, to foreign-born adoptees, can be found in an article written almost 100 years ago by Alexander Porter Morse.(42) He writes that by drawing on the term so well known from English law, the Founders were recognizing “the law of hereditary, rather than territorial allegiance.”(43) In other words, they were drawing on the English legal tradition, which protected allegiance to the king by conferring citizenship on all children “whose fathers were natural-born subjects,” regardless of where the children were born.(44) Thus, according to Morse, “the framers thought it wise, in view of the probable influx of European immigration, to provide that the President should at least be the child of citizens owing allegiance to the United States at the time of his birth.”(45) He goes on to say that the presidential eligibility clause “was scarcely intended to bar the children of American parentage, whether born at sea or in foreign territory…. A natural-born citizen has been defined as one whose citizenship is established by the jurisdiction which the United States already has over the parents of the child, not what is thereafter acquired by choice of residence in this country.”(46)

Although this legal history was never explicitly addressed at the Constitutional Convention, Morse’s view is similar to a statement by Charles Pinckney in 1800, namely, that the presidential eligibility clause is designed “to insure … attachment to the country” on the part of the President. This statement is discussed in more detail below.

Morse also emphasizes the difference between the terms “native-born” and “natural-born.” The dictionary, which follows the English precedents, defines “native-born” as “belonging to or associated with a particular place (as a country) by birth therein” and “natural-born” as “having a specified status or character by birth.”(47) If the Founders had not wanted an expansive definition of citizenship, Morse writes, “it would only have been necessary to say, ‘no person, except a native-born citizen.'”(48)

Another terminological issue concerns the process of “naturalization.” Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power “To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.” Unfortunately, however, the Constitution does not indicate whether people can be declared “natural-born” through the naturalization process.(49) In common usage and according to the dictionary definition, a person who is a “natural-born” citizen would appear to be someone who does not have to be naturalized. Moreover, the dictionary definition of “naturalize” is to “admit (an alien) to the rights and status of citizenship.” These definitions appear to rule out the possibility of overlap between the categories “natural-born” and “naturalized.”

This issue arises in interpreting The Naturalization Act of 1790. One interpretation is that this act is designed to make it clear that people born overseas to American parents are already “natural-born” and do not need to be “naturalized.” As Morse put it,

whoever drew the act followed closely the various parliamentary statues of Great Britain; and its language in this relation indicates that the first congress entertained and declared that children of American parentage, wherever born, were within the constitutional designation, “natural-born citizens.” The act is declaratory: but the reason that such children are natural born remains; that is, their American citizenship is natural — the result of parentage — and is not artificial or acquired by compliance with legislative requirements.(50)

However, the 1790 Act employs the Congressional power to regulate naturalization as a way to clarify the “natural born” citizen category. In fact, the caption of the 1790 Act, “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization,” is taken straight from the Constitution. Thus, a literal interpretation of this action by the first Congress is that the Founding Fathers, who dominated this Congress, believed that the right to define “natural born” was conferred by the “naturalization” clause.(51) This interpretation is entirely consistent with the statement made by Alexander Hamilton on August 13.

A strict, some might say strained, reading of the dictionary definitions also provides some support for this alternative interpretation. An second phrasing of the definition of “naturalize” is “to confer the rights and privileges of a native subject or citizen” (emphasis added). Because the dictionary also makes “natural-born” a broader category than “native-born,” people who are not “native-born,” including people born overseas to American parents, must be “naturalized.”

Unfortunately, the link between “natural born” and “naturalization” was never made explicit by the Founding Fathers, and the term “natural born” does not appear in any naturalization legislation passed since 1790.(52) Moreover, the few related statements by the U.S. Supreme Court are not very helpful. In perhaps its clearest such statement, in Luria v. United States, the Court declared, “Under our Constitution, a naturalized citizen stands on an equal footing with the native citizen in all respects save that of eligibility to the Presidency.”(53) This statement appears to rule out the possibility that “naturalized” citizens could be considered “natural-born,” but it does not indicate whether any people other than “native” or “native-born” citizens can be considered “natural-born” and it does not reveal whether the naturalization clause gives Congress the power to determine what “natural-born” means.

Foreign Influence and Presidential Eligibility

Evidence from the period right after the Constitutional Convention also supports the notion that the Founding Fathers were very concerned about foreign influence on the federal government, and in particular on the President.

The most direct evidence comes from a statement made by Charles Pinckney to the U.S. Senate in 1800. Pinckney had been a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and, on July 26, 1787, had been the first delegate to raise the issue of presidential qualifications in the debate. On March 25, 1800, the Senate was debating a bill “prescribing the mode of deciding disputed elections of President and Vice President of the United States.”(54) Pinckney gave a detailed explanation for the Electoral College, emphasizing that the rules governing the Electoral College were designed so “as to make it impossible … for improper domestic, or, what is of much more consequence, foreign influence and gold to interfere.”(55) Pinckney then made the only documented statement by one of the Founders connecting the Electoral College and the presidential eligibility clause. The Founders “knew well,” he said

that to give to the members of Congress a right to give votes in this election, or to decide upon them when given, was to destroy the independence of the Executive, and make him the creature of the Legislature. This therefore they have guarded against, and to insure experience and attachment to the country, they have determined that no man who is not a natural born citizen, or citizen at the adoption of the Constitution, of fourteen years residence, and thirty-five years of age, shall be eligible….(56)

This statement by one of the Founders, thirteen years after the Constitutional Convention, therefore supports the interpretation, given earlier, that the Electoral College and the presidential eligibility clause were intended primarily as the two sides of a plan to protect the President from foreign influence.

Additional evidence can be found throughout the famous Federalist Papers, “a series of 85 essays written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison between October 1787 and May 1788.”(57)

Essays number 2 through 5 were written by John Jay and they were titled “Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence.” Although the main focus of these essays is on the need for a strong central government to protect a nation from foreign military action, they also suggest that a strong central government can help protect a nation from “foreign influence.” Concern about foreign influence also appears in essay number 20, written by Hamilton and Madison; essay number 43 by Madison; and essays number 66 and 75 by Hamilton. Moreover, the role of the presidential selection mechanism in limiting foreign influence is explicitly discussed by Hamilton in essay number 68. Here is what Hamilton says:

Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors.

The Federalist Papers do not mention the issue of presidential qualifications. However, a well-known treatise on the Constitution published in 1803, like Charles Pinckney’s statement in the U.S. Senate in 1800, explicitly discusses the linkage between the “natural born citizen” clause and the need to avoid foreign influence. In particular, this treatise says:

That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted,) is a happy means of security against foreign influence, which, whereever it is capable of being exerted, is to be dreaded more than the plague. The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against; their total exclusion from a station to which foreign nations have been accustomed to, attach ideas of sovereign power, sacredness of character, and hereditary right, is a measure of the most consummate policy and wisdom. It was by means of foreign connections that the stadtholder of Holland, whose powers at first were probably not equal to those of a president of the United States, became a sovereign hereditary prince before the late revolution in that country. Nor is it with levity that I remark, that the very title of our first magistrate, in some measure exempts us from the danger of those calamities by which European nations are almost perpetually visited. The title of king, prince, emperor, or czar, without the smallest addition to his powers, would have rendered him a member of the fraternity of crowned heads: their common cause has more than once threatened the desolation of Europe. To have added a member to this sacred family in America, would have invited and perpetuated among us all the evils of Pandora’s Box.(58)

This interpretation is echoed in another well-known treatise published 30 years later.

But the general propriety of the exclusion of foreigners, in common cases, will scarcely be doubted by any sound statesman. It cuts off all chances for ambitious foreigners who might otherwise be intriguing for the office; and interposes a barrier against those corrupt interferences of foreign governments in executive elections, which have inflicted the most serious evils upon the elective monarchies of Europe. Germany, Poland, and even the pontificate of Rome, are sad but instructive examples of the enduring mischiefs arising from this source.(59)

Neither treatise provides any evidence that it has accurately characterized the views of the Founding Fathers. However, the first treatise was published only sixteen years after the Constitutional Convention by St. George Tucker, who was, according to the title page of his treatise, “Professor of Law, in the University of William and Mary, And One of The Judges of The General Court in Virginia.” He also served as a major in the Revolutionary War and was present at the Battle of Yorktown.(60) It seems reasonable to presume that such an author might know something about the Founders’ beliefs. As a result, this treatise provides more support for the view, implicit in the debate at the Constitutional Convention, that the “natural born” citizen expression is designed to exclude from the Presidency those people most likely to represent or to be under the influence of a foreign power.

Note that the Tucker treatise, like the statement to the Constitutional Convention by Elbridge Gerry on August 13, uses the term “native-born,” not “natural-born.” This suggests that Tucker and Gerry did not make a distinction between these two terms, although Gerry might have made a distinction and wanted to confine legislative eligibility to people literally born in the United States.

Conclusion: Implications for Foreign-Born Adoptees

The adoption of foreign-born children was unheard of in 1787, and it is inconceivable that the Founding Fathers considered such adoptees when they wrote the presidential eligibility clause. Nevertheless, it is instructive to explore the implications of this clause for the eligibility of foreign-born adoptees to be President.

First, a strict interpretation of the language in the Constitution seems to imply that foreign-born adoptees are not “natural born” citizens and hence are not eligible to be President. Even if a child is matched with adoptive parents before he or she is born in a foreign country to a citizen of that country, he or she is not considered a U.S. citizen at birth. Instead, he or she only becomes a citizen after a formal process of adoption and naturalization.(61) By the language of the Supreme Court’s Luria decision, foreign-born adoptees are therefore not eligible to be President.

Second, in this case, as in many others, a strict interpretation of the Constitution may not be the final answer. Legal scholars have clearly pointed out ambiguity in the meaning of “natural born” and “naturalization,” and the Founding Fathers did not leave a record that clears things up. Even the Luria decision cannot be regarded as definitive because it was not directly ruling on the “natural born” citizen clause. Thus, it is conceivable that legislation declaring foreign-born adoptees to be “natural born” citizens could be upheld by the Supreme Court.

Third, none of the above interpretations of the “natural born citizen” phrase conflicts in spirit with presidential eligibility for foreign-born adoptees. The historical record contains two, possibly overlapping, interpretations of the “natural born citizen” clause: It is designed to grant full citizenship to all people with American parents and/or to prevent pernicious foreign influence on the President.

The first interpretation was not intended, of course, to cover foreign-born adoptees, but it is consistent with the notion that American parents build families under many different circumstances and that these circumstances should not influence whether their children are eligible to be President. Although the Founding Fathers did not contemplate the possibility of adopting foreign orphans, their apparent desire to confer full American citizenship, including presidential eligibility, on the children of American parents who give birth overseas is entirely consistent with a desire to confer full American citizenship on the children of American parents who turn to the adoption of a foreign orphan as a way to build their family.

The language used by Morse is particularly favorable to foreign-born adoptees, each of whom is, in fact, “the child of citizens owing allegiance to the United States at the time of his birth.” Moreover, foreign-born adoptees, who grow up as Americans, also meet the more modest criteria expressed by Charles Pinckney, namely, that the President should exhibit “attachment to the country.” If these statements accurately reflect the Founder’s intentions, therefore, then they would support presidential eligibility for foreign-born adoptees.

The second interpretation is also perfectly consistent with presidential eligibility for foreign-born adoptees. No one could argue that a foreign-born adoptee, who after all grows up surrounded by American institutions and guided by American citizens, threatens the United States with foreign influence. Indeed, the idea that innocent orphans represent the foreign “instrument” in Gerry’s August 13 statement to the Convention or the “plague” in Tucker’s treatise is ludicrous on its face. Making foreign-born orphans eligible to be President would not open a “Pandora’s Box”!

Overall, this history leaves foreign-born adoptees as second-class citizens in the sense first expressed by Alexander Hamilton in his statement to the Constitutional Convention on August 13. In fact, foreign-born adoptees are ineligible to be President, even though the Founding Fathers never considered these adoptees’ situation and even through all the interpretations offered for the “natural born citizen” clause in the Constitution are consistent with presidential eligibility for people in this category.

This unfair situation might be remedied through legislation. One could argue that Congress has the authority to define constitutional terms, such as “natural-born” that are left ambiguous by the Constitution and the debate at the Constitutional Convention. One might also build on the view, expressed in Hamilton’s statement on August 13 and in the 1790 naturalization act, that the “naturalization” power awarded to Congress by the Constitution allows Congress to define the meaning of “natural born citizen.” However, the legal uncertainty surrounding an even more basic question about the “natural born citizen” clause, namely whether it covers people born overseas to American parents, indicates that a legislative solution may be illusive.(62)

The inescapable conclusion is that it will at least take path-breaking legislation, and may take a constitutional amendment, to ensure that foreign-born adoptees are full American citizens, eligible to run for President if they choose to do so.

__________________________________

1. John Yinger is Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, and the father of two adoptive children, one of whom, even when old enough, will not be eligible to be President.

2. The term “natural born” citizen also appeared in a debate in the Continental Congress about ten years earlier, on November 11, 1777. In particular, a “Committee appointed to take into Consideration new articles proper to be added or included in the Confederation,” which consisted of Richard Henry Lee, Henry Marchant, and James Duane, offered an amendment stating that “the Citizens of every State, going to reside in another State, Shall be entitled to all the rights and privileges of the natural born free Citizens of the State to which they go to reside.” See “http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?hlaw:1:./temp/~ammem_BmEK::.” However, the “natural born” modifier was dropped in the final version of the amendment. See “http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?hlaw:1:./temp/~ammem_yCqO::.” Unfortunately, this case does not provide any assistance in interpreting the use of this modifier in the Constitution.

3. One source reports that he had been appointed as a delegate but declined to serve. See Wilborne E. Benton, editor, Drafting the Constitution, Vol. I. (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1986), p. 20. I have not been able to confirm this information in any other source.

4. As one scholar puts it, “Although he was not present at Philadelphia, Jay’s views were known to the most influential delegates, and he even indulged in a bit of lobbying while the Continental Congress was in session.” Richard B. Morris, Witnesses at the Creation: Hamilton, Madison, Jay and the Constitution (New York: Holt, Tinehart, and Winston, 1985), pp. 189-90.

5. Max Ferrand, editor, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, Revised Edition, Volume III (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937), p. 61. You can find this letter at the Library of Congress web site: “http://thomas.loc.gov.” According to Charles Gordon, “Who Can Be President of the United States: The Unresolved Enigma,” Maryland Law Review, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Winter 1968), p. 5, this letter was sent to Washington and “probably to other delegates.”

6. Morris, op. cit., p. 191.

7. Gordon, op. cit., p. 5. Gordon cites several sources that discuss Jay’s mistrust of von Stuben and the rumors about a monarchy. Another scholar confirms these reports and actually blends them: “Von Steuben had been sounded out about establishing a limited monarchy in America.” Morris, op. cit., p. 190.

8. Gordon, op. cit., p. 4.

9. James Madison, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1878 Reported by James Madison (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1966), p. 364. Many other editions of these notes are available; they can be cross-referenced with this edition by date.

10. Madison, op. cit., p. 366.

11. Madison, op. cit., pp. 367-8.

12. Morris, op. cit., p. 191.

13. Madison, op. cit., p. 372. Mason’s motion included a clause “disqualifying persons having unsettled Accts with or being indebted to the U.S. from being members of the Natl Legislature.” This clause was necessary, he argued, because experience in state legislatures had shown that such people would join a legislature to pass legislation that removes their debts. However, this clause has nothing to do with foreign influence, and it was rejected by the Convention.

21. Morris, op. cit., p. 191. Morris writes “Jay’s ‘anti-foreigners’ proposal appears to have been reflected in the motion that Elbridge Gerry made on the floor of the Convention in August.”

22. Madison, op. cit., p. 437.

23. Madison, op. cit., p. 438.

24. Madison, op. cit., p. 438.

25. The Wilson and Butler quotations are from Madison, op. cit., p. 439.

26. Madison, op. cit., p. 439.

27. Madison, op. cit., p., 439.

28. Madison, op. cit., p. 440.

29. Madison, op. cit., p. 488.

30. Madison, op. cit., p. 509.

31. Madison, op. cit., p. 569. Although there were thirteen colonies, Rhode Island had declined to send any delegates to the convention, and two of the three delegates from New York had left the Convention because of their objections to a strong central government thereby effectively eliminating New York’s vote. See Morris, op. cit., p. 188.

34. Madison’s statement in favor of Hamilton’s motion on August 13 may help to explain why legislative selection of the President was ultimately rejected by the Convention. He said “If bribery was to be practiced by foreign powers, it would not be attempted among the electors but among the elected.” Madison, op. cit., p. 438.

37. The Founding Fathers did not rule out foreigners as such. Building on the Morris exception of August 13, they made anyone who was a citizen “at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution” eligible to be President. This phrase applied to thousands of foreign-born citizens, including seven signers of the Constitution (James Wilson, Robert Morris and Thomas Fitzsimons of Pennsylvania, Alexander Hamilton of New York, William Paterson of New Jersey, James McHenry of Maryland, and Pierce Butler of South Carolina). This list (from http://www.nidlink.com /~bobhard/constit3.html) includes one of my ancestors, James McHenry, from whom I inherited my middle name! One commentator argues, without supporting evidence that this exception was included out of respect for these people. See Joseph Story, Commentary on the Constitution of the United States (Durham, N.C: Carolina Academic Press, 1987), par. 1479. This is a reprinted version of the book first published in 1833.

38. See Gordon, op. cit., which is the source of the information in this paragraph.

39. Gordon, op. cit., p. 8.

40. Gordon, op. cit., pp. 8-9.

41. However, this interpretation has been disputed by some. See Gordon, op. cit.

42. Alexander Porter Morse, “Natural-Born-Citizen of the United States: Eligibility for the Office of President,” Albany Law Journal, vol.66 (1904), pp. 99-100.

43. Morse, op. cit, p. 99. Emphasis in the original.

44. Morse, op. cit., p. 99.

45. Morse, op.cit., p. 99. Gordon, op. cit, p. 9 writes that Morse makes this claim “without any supporting citation.” I think this is a bit harsh. Morse does not cite a statement by one of the Founders, of course, but he does (as does Gordon himself) cite evidence from English law and from the Naturalization Act of 1790.

46. Morse, op. cit., p. 99.

47. These definitions are from Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the American Language, unabridged edition (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc, 1981). Note that the dictionary uses a hyphen in the adjective “natural-born,” whereas the Constitution does not.

48. Morse, op. cit., p. 99. It should be noted that Morse is reluctant to accept one implication of the dictionary definition of “native-born,” namely, that it includes people born in the United States even if their parents are not citizens. “It remains to be decided,” Morse writes, “whether a child of domiciled Chinese parents, born in the United States, is eligible, if otherwise qualified, to the office of president” (p. 100). So far as I know, however, this case has never been unclear: Anyone born in the United States has full citizenship rights.

49. As Gordon, op. cit., put it, “since the presidential qualification clause does not … refer to naturalization, there may still be room for qualification as a natural born citizen even thought the process of acquisition at birth abroad was characterized as naturalization” (p. 15).

50. Morse, op. cit., p. 100.

51. Further discussion of this issue can be found in Gordon, op. cit., p. 9 According to Gordon, “It is possible that a person who was regarded in 1790 as a naturalized citizen could also be deemed natural born, if he acquired his United States citizenship at birth. Under the direct mandate of the 1790 act, such a person was given the rights of a natural born citizen, whether or not one believes that his citizenship resulted from naturalization. However, such an hypothesis might still leave open the question of whether or not Congress can enlarge or modify the categories of eligible citizens encompassed within the presidential qualification clause.”

52. Gordon, op. cit., p. 9. The term “natural born” has appeared in congressional debates, however. On February 19, 1813, for example, Congressman Pitkin was so worried about foreign influence in the navy and merchant marine that he made a motion requiring that a certain portion “of all the persons employed as seamen or sailors on board any public ship or vessel of the United States, or any ship or vessel owned by citizens of the United States, shall be natural born citizens of the United States” or people who are already citizens by a certain time. See “http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?hlaw:1:./temp/~ammem_zFb8::.” However, he withdrew his motion two days later, after a pause that included the reading of the votes from the Electoral College that made James Madison President and Elbridge Gerry Vice-President!
“http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?hlaw:1:./temp/~ammem_Lk8C::.”

54. Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, 1789-1873, Friday, March 28, 1800. “http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?hlaw:2:./temp/~ammem_Jnew::.”

55. “The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787” (Farrand’s Records), CCLXXXVIII, Charles Pinckney in the United States Senate, March 28, 1800, p. 387. “http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?hlaw:10:./temp/~ammem_jwJ2::.”

57. This quotations is taken from the Library of Congress web site on the Federalist Papers, namely, “http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/fed/abt_fedpapers.html.” This site also points out that “because Hamilton and Madison were each members of the Constitutional Convention, the Federalist Papers are often used today to help interpret the intentions of those drafting the Constitution.” Access to the Federalist Papers themselves can be found at
“http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/fed/fedpapers.html.”

58. St. George Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries: with Notes of Reference, to the Constitution and Laws, of the Federal Government of the United States; and of The Commonwealth of Virginia. Philadelphia: William Young Birch and Abraham Small, 1803. Available on the internet at http://www.constitution.org/tb/t1d14000.htm.

59. Story, op. cit., par. 1479. Note that Story draws on the examples of Germany and Poland, which are both mentioned by Madison in his statement at the Constitutional Convention on July 25.

61. Foreign-born adoptees who become citizens as children receive a “certificate of citizenship” not a “certificate of naturalization.” However, this distinction is intended to differentiate between people who become naturalized at the instigation of their parents and those who become naturalized by their own choice — not to differentiate between naturalization and some other process. In fact, neither Congress nor its creation, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, is empowered to confer citizenship through any process other than “naturalization.”

62. Gordon, op. cit., p. 32 concludes his detailed analysis of this question by saying that “the picture is clouded by elements of doubt” and that “it may eventually be necessary to amend the Constitution in order to remove this ambiguity.” For an analysis of the need for a constitutional amendment to make foreign-born adoptees eligible to be President, see John Yinger, “Is The Right of Foreign-born Adoptees to be President an Appropriate Subject for a Constitutional Amendment?,” “http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/jyinger/facfa2.html.”

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“The common law of England is not the common law of these States.” —George Mason

What might the phrase “natural-born citizen” of the United States imply under the U.S. Constitution? The phrase has always been obscure due to the lack of any single authoritative source to confer in order to understand the condition of citizenship the phrase recognizes. Learning what the phrase might have meant following the Declaration of Independence, and the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, requires detective work. As with all detective work, eliminating the usual suspects from the beginning goes a long way in quickly solving a case.

What Natural-Born Citizen Could Not Mean

Could a natural-born citizen simply mean citizenship due to place of birth?

Unlikely in the strict sense because we know one can be native born and yet not a native born citizen of this country. There were even disputes whether anyone born within the District of Columbia or in the territories were born citizens of the United States (they were generally referred to as “inhabitants” instead.) National Government could make no “territorial allegiance” demands within the several States because as Madison explained it, the “powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”

Jurisdiction over citizenship via birth within the several States was part of the “ordinary course of affairs” of the States that only local laws could affect. Early acts of Naturalization recognized the individual State Legislatures as the only authority who could make anyone a citizen of a State. Framer James Wilson said, “a citizen of the United States is he, who is a citizen of at least some one state in the Union.” These citizens of each State were united together through Article IV, Sec. II of the U.S. Constitution, and thus, no act of Congress was required to make citizens of the individual States citizens of the United States.

Prior to the Revolutionary War place of birth within the dominions of the crown was the principle criterion for establishing perpetual allegiance and citizenship. After independence perpetual allegiance was abandoned for expatriation and, as Madison stated, citizenship was strictly left to the individual States to define.

Could a natural-born citizen perhaps be synonymous with the British term “natural-born subject”?

It is very doubtful the framers adopted the doctrine found under the old English doctrine of “natural-born subject.” The British doctrine allowed for double allegiances, something the founders considered improper and dangerous. The American naturalization process required all males to twice renounce all allegiances with other governments and pledge their allegiance to this one before finally becoming a citizen.

House Report No. 784, dated June 22, 1874, stated, “The United States have not recognized a ‘double allegiance.’ By our law a citizen is bound to be ‘true and faithful’ alone to our government.” It wouldn’t be practical for the United States to claim a child as a citizen when the child’s natural country of origin equally claims him/her because doing so could leave the child with two competing legal obligations, e.g., military duty.

Under the old English common law doctrine of natural-born subject, birth itself was an act of naturalization that required no prior consent or demand of expressed allegiance to the nation in advance. Furthermore, birth was viewed as enjoining a “perpetual allegiance” upon all that could never be severed or altered by any change of time or act of anyone. England’s “perpetual allegiance” due from birth was extremely unpopular in this country; often referred to as absurd barbarism, or simply perpetual nonsense. America went to war with England over the doctrine behind “natural-born subject” in June of 1812.

Because Britain considered all who were born within the dominions of the crown to be its natural-born subjects even after becoming naturalized citizens of the United States, led to British vessels blockading American ports. Under the British blockade, every American ship entering or leaving was boarded by soldiers in search of British born subjects. At least 6,000 American citizens who were found to be British natural-born subjects were pressed into military service on behalf of the British Empire, and thus, the reason we went to war.

Fourteenth Amendment

Whatever might had been the correct understanding of “natural-born citizen” prior to 1866, the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment certainly changes the view because for the first time we have a written national rule declaring who are citizens through birth or naturalization. Who may be born citizens is conditional upon being born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States – a condition not required under the common law. The legislative definition of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was defined as “Not owing allegiance to anybody else,” which is vastly different from local jurisdiction due to physical location alone.

This national rule prevents us from interpreting natural-born citizen under common law rules because it eliminates the possibility of a child being born with more than one claim for allegiance.

The primary author of the citizenship clause, Sen. Jacob M. Howard, said the “word jurisdiction, as here employed, ought to be construed so as to imply a full and complete jurisdiction on the part of the United States, coextensive in all respects with the constitutional power of the United States, whether exercised by Congress, by the executive, or by the judicial department; that is to say, the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now.”

United States Attorney General, George Williams, whom was a U.S. Senator aligned with Radical Republicans during the drafting of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866, ruled in 1873 the word “jurisdiction” under the Fourteenth Amendment “must be understood to mean absolute and complete jurisdiction, such as the United States had over its citizens before the adoption of this amendment.” He added, “Political and military rights and duties do not pertain to anyone else.”

Essentially then, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means the same jurisdiction the United States exercises over its own citizens, i.e., only citizens of the United States come within its operation since citizens of the United States do not owe allegiance to some other nation at the same time they do the United States. This makes arguing the physical presence of being subject to laws silly because being subject to another countries laws while visiting makes no change to an aliens allegiance to their native country.

Natural-Born Citizen Defined

One universal point most all early publicists agreed on was natural-born citizen must mean one who is a citizen by no act of law. If a person owes their citizenship to some act of law (naturalization for example), they cannot be considered a natural-born citizen. This leads us to defining natural-born citizen under the laws of nature – laws the founders recognized and embraced.

Under the laws of nature, every child born requires no act of law to establish the fact the child inherits through nature his/her father’s citizenship as well as his name (or even his property) through birth. This law of nature is also recognized by law of nations. Sen. Howard said the citizenship clause under the Fourteenth Amendment was by virtue of “natural law and national law.”

The advantages of Natural Law is competing allegiances between nations are not claimed, or at least with those nations whose custom is to not make citizens of other countries citizens without their consent. Any alternations or conflicts due to a child’s natural citizenship are strictly a creature of local municipal law. In the year 1866, the United States for the first time adopted a local municipal law under Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes that read: “All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of the United States.”

Rep. John A. Bingham commenting on Section 1992 said it means “every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.” (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866))

Bingham had asserted the same thing in 1862 as well:

Does the gentleman mean that any person, born within the limits of the Republic, and who has offended against no law, can rightfully be exiled from any State or from any rood of the Republic? Does the gentleman undertake to say that here, in the face of the provision in the Constitution, that persons born within the limits of the Republic, of parents who are not the subjects of any other sovereignty, are native-born citizens, whether they be black or white? There is not a textbook referred to in any court which does not recognise the principle that I assert. (Cong. Globe, 37th, 2nd Sess., 407 (1862))

Bingham of course was paraphrasing Vattel whom often used the plural word “parents” but made it clear it was the father alone for whom the child inherits his/her citizenship from. Bingham subscribed to the same view as most everyone in Congress at the time that in order to be born a citizen of the United States one must be born within the allegiance of the Nation. As the court has consistently ruled without controversy, change of location never changes or alters the allegiance of anyone but only an act of the person acting per written law can alter the allegiance owed.

This of course, explains why emphasis of not owing allegiance to anyone else was the effect of being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment.

It should be noted this allegiance due under England’s common law and American law are of two different species. Under the common law one owed a personal allegiance to the King as an individual upon birth for which could never be thrown off. Under the American system there was no individual ruler to owe a perpetual personal allegiance to.

The constitutional requirement for the President of the United States to be a natural-born citizen had one purpose according to St. George Tucker:

That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted,) is a happy means of security against foreign influence, which, wherever it is capable of being exerted, is to he dreaded more than the plague. The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against; their total exclusion from a station to which foreign nations have been accustomed to, attach ideas of sovereign power, sacredness of character, and hereditary right, is a measure of the most consummate policy and wisdom. …The title of king, prince, emperor, or czar, without the smallest addition to his powers, would have rendered him a member of the fraternity of crowned heads: their common cause has more than once threatened the desolation of Europe. To have added a member to this sacred family in America, would have invited and perpetuated among us all the evils of Pandora’s Box.

Charles Pinckney in 1800 said the presidential eligibility clause was designed “to insure … attachment to the country.” President Washington warned a “passionate attachment of one nation for another, produces a variety of evils,” and goes on to say:

Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation, of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill- will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld.

And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, (who devote themselves to the favorite nation,) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearance of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

What better way to insure attachment to the country then to require the President to have inherited his American citizenship through his American father and not through a foreign father. Any child can be born anywhere in the country and removed by their father to be raised in his native country. The risks would be for the child to return in later life to reside in this country bringing with him foreign influences and intrigues, and thus, making such a citizen indistinguishable from a naturalized citizen.

Conclusion

Extending citizenship to non-citizens through birth based solely upon locality is nothing more than mere municipal law that has no extra-territorial effect as proven from the English practice of it. On the other hand, citizenship by descent through the father is natural law and is recognized by all nations (what nation doesn’t recognize citizenship of children born wherever to their own citizens?). Thus, a natural-born citizen is one whose citizenship is recognized by law of nations rather than mere local recognition.

Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, James F. Wilson of Iowa, confirmed this in 1866: “We must depend on the general law relating to subjects and citizens recognized by all nations for a definition, and that must lead us to the conclusion that every person born in the United States is a natural-born citizen of such States, except that of children born on our soil to temporary sojourners or representatives of foreign Governments.”*

When a child inherits the citizenship of their father they become a natural-born citizen of the nation their father belongs regardless of where they might be born. It should be pointed out that citizenship through descent of the father was recognized by U.S. Naturalization law whereby children became citizens themselves as soon as their father had become a naturalized citizen.

In a nation that has abandoned the English tradition of “perpetual allegiance” to the King upon birth for the principal of expatriation, the requirement of preexisting allegiance of the father can be the only method for a child to be born into the allegiance of the nation, and thus, a natural-born citizen.

UPDATE: It is important to keep in mind when reading 300 year-old discussions of citizenship to foreigners that all states required foreigners to renounce their allegiance to their country of origin and pledge their sole allegiance to the state as a condition of residency. Therefore, children born to these foreigners even though the father might not yet been a citizen himself were considered born into the allegiance of the state because of their father’s sole allegiance to the state and not simply because of locality.

In regards to questions about the citizenship of the mother: Mothers citizenship rarely ever influenced the citizenship of their children except in certain situations such as the father dying before the child was born or when the identity of the father was unknown.

* Temporary sojourners like transient aliens were a description applied to aliens other than resident aliens. The difference being temporary aliens were here for temporary purposes, such as work, travel, visitation or school, who had no desire to become citizens or was prevented from becoming citizens by law. Resident aliens were those who desired to become citizens and had renounced their prior allegiances and had taken the legal steps to become citizens or reside within some state per state law.

Barrister Michael Shrimpton states unequivocally that Obama’s purported mom was not pregnant in 1961 and that Obama was born in Kenya in 1960.

Kenya was still under British control which is why their intelligence files show Obama’s father ran guns for the Mau Mau. Shrimpton states the CIA did covert DNA testing on Obama at a fund-raising dinner and the test came back with no match to the claimed grandparents.

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While there may have been some genuinely ignorant members of Congress who did not understand the meaning/definition of Natural Born Citizenship and how it applies to the U.S. and the presidency, that is no longer the case.

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The following article written by Dan Crosby of The Daily Pen is an important read. It also shows how far we’ve come and how far the Left Stream Media continues to go to protect the fraud in the White House.

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The plan that was devised sometime in 2004, just in time for Barack Obama to run for POTUS. Since taking the time to change the NBC clause would mean adding a new amendment to the Constitution, the idea was/is to simply ignore it and conflate natural born citizenship with citizenship.

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Obama Speak from the Obama File Obama told a Selma audience how he had been conceived by his parents because they had been inspired by the fervor following the “Bloody Sunday” voting rights demonstration in Selma, Alabama. “There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama,” he said. “Because[…]

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The following was originally posted in The Obama File soon to be shut down…going black! I don’t know what to believe? help fight the media Obama — A Kenyan? — All Of These Sources Say So The only thing we KNOW about Barack Hussein Obama II is we don’t[…]

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The Origins and Interpretation of the Presidential Eligibility Clause in the U.S. Constitution: Why Did the Founding Fathers Want the President To Be a “Natural Born Citizen” and What Does this Clause Mean for Foreign-Born Adoptees? by John Yinger(1) Revised Version, April 6, 2000 Introduction In Article II, Section 1, the U.S. Constitution says: No[…]

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By P.A. Madison on November 18, 2008 “The common law of England is not the common law of these States.” —George Mason What might the phrase “natural-born citizen” of the United States imply under the U.S. Constitution? The phrase has always been obscure due to the lack of any single authoritative source to[…]